Button Bloat But Nah?

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I too had been chatting with my friend regarding the hotbar concerns. On paper, it does worries me. But I won't know for sure until the expansion drops.

I'm that kind of player who likes to have all possible buttons existing in the hotbar however impractical. To this point I have no actual gameplay problem despite all the extras with 4 active combat hotbars (waymarks and markers aren't included). Coming EW though I'll have to shift buttons priorities and/or make room for additional actions such as (speaking of healers mainly):

1. SCH: Expedient & Protraction, with no buttons to delete. Maybe -now- I'm going to consider removing Repose from the hotbar but I digress, until I get my firsthand experience. I'll shift Protraction and Union to higher in priority list so now I actually have to give them a reliable hotkey to press... and I am soon running out of options for that.
2. AST: Macrocosmos, Astrodyne, Exaltation, Lord/Lady, and Crown Play. Sects buttons are removed (?) so that frees up 2 additional slots, but these two slots are not one that is convenient to utilize mid combat so I'll have to shift other buttons priorities and decide which button gets to take their place now. Lord/Lady & Crown Play will essentially replace MA and Sleeve's hotkeys. Exaltation will probably need a new, more practical hotkey for me... it's probably time to move Benefic I faaarr away.
3. WHM: Aquaveil and Lilybell. Fluid Aura is removed so that's 1 less button to press. Then again, since when WHM has any trouble in term of button bloats in ShB+ and beyond?
4. NIN: I haven't read much into NIN's released media tour toolkit, but currently my NIN's hotbar is so -full-. I'm worried I'll have to start doing weird combination of key inputs.

I leave some slots empty intentionally to be filled accordingly with communication macro, tinctures, potions, depending on what I'm going to run. These are all the buttons that I manually click 100%, and I'm generally very inconsistent. I may have to consider adding Sprint macro, Ethers, and LB button into this section in coming EW...

[Kolsykol]

I like the amount of skills jobs have in FFXIV, none of them have button bloat (in my opinion). The reason why I can't get into new MMOs is because they lack skills. Look at New World, classes have like 6 skills, so boring!
Anyway, back to XIV. My main is RDM and I love the way my skills turn into other skills during my rotation (combos). It's something SE should do more often, it's very comfy and fun.

Totally agree, I got so bored when I tried to get into ESO.
Altho to some extent that was also because of the weapon swap I hated that system, but it was also because of how I felt like I was using the same handful of skills over and over again.

In FFXIV the Jobs feel very '' designed '' for a lack of a better term and in a good way.

and ditch that stupid immune to knockbacks skill anyway I never saw anyone use that in the entire game

Uuum.
That skill is awesome.

[RitsukoSonoda]

I have 3 hotbars set for job specific layouts on each job then a 4th bar I set as a vertical bar on the right edge of the screen that is used for common commands like teleport, return, sprint, item usage etc.

For jobs bar 1 and 2 will have active skills/spells on them that go with rotations. Bar 3 is where I place CD skills.

[Rongway]

All my jobs fit on this with at least eight slots open. That is to say, any job should be able to fit on three hotbars.

Most actions are on 1-6 with four possible modifiers. I avoid binding anything to Sh+6 or ASh+6 because they're just too easy to get wrong when everything is happening quickly.

On healers I don't use the the top Sh1-Sh6 and ASh1-Ash6 rows (UI Hotbar 2) except to show cooldowns. Most heals are bound to the mouse cluster (UI Hotbar 3), which uses middle click, navForward, and navBack.

The navigation cluster (UI Hotbar 4) has Sprint on Del and knockback blocker on End for all jobs. Jobs that have gap closers use Ins and jobs with backsteps use Home. Sprint and knockback blocker are also bound to thumb buttons on mouse in case I'm healing.

I don't play with a mouse unless I'm healing. My resting hand position is left hand thumb on alt, ring finger on 1/A, index on 3/D. Right hand thumb on ctrl, fingers on arrows/nav. Target Nearest Enemy is G/backslash and duty action is X/rightbracket so either hand can press either button quickly. I access the ASh row with left thumb alt and right index shift, except when healing since I mouseover heal; in that case I access my ASh heals with left thumb alt, left pinky shift.

Not pictured are the limit break button, which is bound to CASh+L so if I press it it's very deliberate. Also not pictured is a hotbar to the left of the party list with buttons lined up with party slots for direct macroed things like Aetherial Manipulation or Rescue on each party member; these of course are not a contributor to "button bloat" because the dedication of this hotbar to that purpose is of my own choice.






In the specific case of AST, I have all my card-related actions on the ASh row so I can see their cooldowns but I don't press those buttons. The cards are all macroed to two buttons on the neutral row, but with the changes to Minor Arcana and Divination I'll be able to eliminate one of those macros unless Play Minor Arcana is going to be a button separate from Draw Minor Arcana; I haven't looked closely enough at AST footage and Action Helps yet because I plan to heal Sage first.



Also also not pictured is by the limit break button I have a macro bound to Backspace which can swap between two bar sets, with the intent that this be used to switch between AoE mode and single target mode. In practice I haven't been using this on jobs I actually play often, but with the changes coming in EW, some jobs will be even better suited to splitting AoE and ST bars, so I'll probably use this more in EW, further reducing the hotbar demands of those jobs. If I ever wanted to switch to keyboard-only healing, I could also use this to swap between offensive and defensive bars.

[Nethereal]

I plan to heal Sage first.

Eyyyyyy

Also also not pictured is by the limit break button I have a macro bound to Backspace which can swap between two bar sets, with the intent that this be used to switch between AoE mode and single target mode.
In practice I haven't been using this on jobs I actually play often, but with the changes coming in EW, some jobs will be even better suited to splitting AoE and ST bars, so I'll probably use this more in EW, further reducing the hotbar demands of those jobs. If I ever wanted to switch to keyboard-only healing, I could also use this to swap between offensive and defensive bars.

I actually briefly fiddled with the concept of having essentially 2 hotbars with the space of 1 by virtue of macro but never got comfortable using it nor did I try it out for long but it did work like a charm.
That's actually a fairly good idea to revisit because like someone else said I'm not running out of space per say but comfortable keybinds to put things on that require urgency.
Luckily I don't have to worry about that at all on sage but things to think about for AST and SCH.

[RobynDaBank]

Saved me a lot of sanity because the default cramped style all at the bottom annoyed my vision when I began getting to 50+ levels. Misshapen Chair, a YouTuber, gave me this idea for a layout. It's made my field of vision greater and "trained" me to look someplace besides mid-bottom to my hotbars.

This is definitely going to take some adjustments with the new SCH ability - and for sure AST with its Minor Arcana split and Astrodyne. But we'll see when it happens.

[lisaa]

You just can't. People keep asking for more and more complexity. WHM can fit but already AST and SCH have too many so you just have to add them somewhere else on screen and click them and it will just get worse in EW.

I don't think having to buy an MMO mouse which is a lot of money is a reasonable expectation

We are at the limit of keyboard hotkeys

[Nayukhuut]

Not gonna lie... As an AST main I do kinda think I’m gonna have to do some serious ability juggling to keep my hotbars and skills in a way that still feels comfortable to use. The removal of the Sects doesn’t help too much since I had those off in the middle of nowhere anyway and just clicked em. I mean, I’ll adjust, but I would definitely prefer a few less skills.

Maybe I’ll just yeet Benefic 1 off my bar and just put it back when I get a baby dungeon...

[Marxam]

After seeing how PLD got an upgrade for Spirits Within to Expiacion and how it changes it to an aoe with most of the damage on the first enemy and a % less for the remaining, I feel like all WAR/DRK should have gotten the same treatment. It would free up one more button.

WAR - Upheaval upgrades to Orogeny
DRK - Edge of Shadow upgrades to Flood of Shadow

However PLD has the worst button bloat of all the tanks, with DRK a close second. WAR is currently the right amount though if they implemented the changes I used in the example it would be perfect imo. My issue with PLD is that I have to macro skills especially being on PS5 and only using two cross bars. So I only have 32 slots to put all the job skills and abilities in addition to the role actions. There are also 2-4 slots that mandatory gap closers/job skills, so I have even less space to use. This is also not including things like pots. Some QoL I would recommend of buttons overlaying each other to save space:

WAR:
-Inner Release is changed to Primal Rend when Inner Release is used

PLD:
-Royal Authority is changed to Atonement when combo bonus is achieved

Ultimately I'm not a fan of "dead buttons" and what I mean by that is buttons that sit on you cast bar and are only active after using a skill/ability. Using Primal Rend as an example. It's a dead button that is only active once a minute so why would I put that on my crossbar when it share the exact same recast timer as IR, the skill used to activate it? I've never had to use macros outside of shirk and nascent flash but this is the first expansion where I have to actively macro multiple skills.